Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC | Black Archives & Memory

About

May 15, 2025

10am PT

Online

 Free

Tickets are free, but registration is required. Once you register, you'll receive an email detailing how to join via Zoom.

Register via Zoom.

Visionary librarian Doris Saunders established the Johnson Publishing Company's (JPC) meticulously organized and unparalleled photo files beginning in 1949 to support the editorial needs of iconic publications like Ebony and Jet. Under her successor, photo editor Basil Phillips, the collection significantly grew as the company extended its reach. Together, their work preserved both published and unpublished images of historically significant events, celebrities, political movements, and everyday moments of Black life, culture, and achievement spanning from the mid-1940s through the early 2000s.

This panel features Getty archivist Steven D. Booth, artist and executive director of Afro Charities Savannah Wood, and Dorothy Berry, digital curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They will highlight the remarkable legacies of Saunders, Phillips, and other Black archivists, the invisible labor of preserving cultural heritage, and discuss why Black archives are essential resources for documenting and celebrating the African American experience.

The Johnson Publishing Company Archive is owned by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and J. Paul Getty Trust. In 2019, a consortium made up of the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution acquired the JPC archive. In 2022, ownership was transferred to NMAAHC and the J. Paul Getty Trust, with a commitment to make the archive available to the public by 2029.